


Au Revoir

by SylphOfLight



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Ending, Alternate Universe- Everyone Dies, Gen, Internal Monologue, M/M, POV Jean Kirstein
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-03
Updated: 2014-03-03
Packaged: 2018-01-14 11:38:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1265128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SylphOfLight/pseuds/SylphOfLight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the end, with everything been and gone and dead, you still didn't expect it to be so quiet. </p><p>And as you sit, alone and bleeding in the silence, you think.</p><p>And you swear to Sina, it hurts like a bitch.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Au Revoir

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by OneRepublic's [Au Revoir](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBbcl05Bx1U).

It’s quiet.

 

It surprises you, you expected the war to end in a loud bang, in a roar from Eren’s titan form, in some spectacular explosion that humanity would have no chance of forgetting. Instead, it’s quiet. With the ocean lapping your bare toes, you sit in the impossibly soft sand and just spend a moment to _think_. You can feel the wound in your back, you’re not an idiot, you know you’re going to die of blood loss soon. You’ve already lost most feeling to your body, but you can still see the birds – seagulls, you remember Armin telling you a lifetime ago –fighting over fish, effortlessly soaring through the sky, reminding you of the tattered pair of wings on your back, ripped, stained with your blood, but still _there_. Resilient and bold, a ‘fuck you’to the titans who tried to crush humanity. It reminds you of the promise, of your first salute to defend the glory of humanity, of restoring mankind’s dignity. Despite this, you think your time as a soldier is almost over. So you sit and think in the silence.

 

You think of Eren.

 

You miss the petty arguments you two had when you were trainees. You miss his stupid, ignorant, obnoxious determination. You miss the way everything would be all or nothing to him. When he died, it was like he took all the colour from the world with him. Nothing could be as intense as Eren, nothing could even attempt to try. You think back to your first fight, all of the crackling tension jumping in your veins, the addictive feeling from looking into his intense gaze, the unspoken challenge simmering in his stare, green locked on gold. He was the best rival you could’ve asked for, always shouting, always taking, always so, so alive. The arguments were spontaneous yet seemed perfectly rehearsed, one insult after another, and who cared if they hurt in the morning, or if they went too far every single time, because learning to turn your fear into anger was the best lesson Eren could have taught you. You think of when precisely your childish rivalry turned to grudging respect to the familiarity you have – or rather, had – with him now. You think of when his voice used to grate on your nerves rather than fill you with exasperated hope – what’s the point though, he’s still lying without a pulse somewhere, hope or without – you think –

 

About **_pain_** , the unbelievable pain wracking through your body, shit, shit, shit, you can’t breathe you can’t think, holy fuck, everything’s on fire and numb all at once it’s all too much and everything hurts, fuck, you can feel the electric pain from your back and –

 

Breathe. In. Hold. Out. Hold. Repeat. The pain subsides eventually and you return to the cold, empty feeling from before. The one which feels like death is waiting right behind you, just out of sight, letting you finish your bullshit monologue. You feel like laughing, or crying, either one, you don’t know anymore, because isn’t it _perfect_ , that Jean Kirschtein, selfish to the core, is getting time to himself, even in his dying moments. And yet, there’s nothing, absolutely nothing, that you wouldn’t give to have one of your comrades sitting by you.

 

Irony is a funny thing.

 

You can still feel the sparks of pain just festering under your skin so you try to distract yourself once again. When you gather up your remaining strength, you can almost see a flash of metal in the corner of your eye. A red scarf fluttering in the wind, saturated with blood, so much blood.

 

You think of strength.

 

You think of Mikasa.

 

Beautiful Mikasa, the epitome of loyalty and bravery and talent. Your romantic feelings for her had long died down, but that doesn’t mean you can’t admire her, her looks, her skill, her apathetic aura she presented to the world to stop everyone knowing how much she **_felt_**. Steeled grey eyes outlined by purple bags told stories of sleepless nights, of secrets that no one would know, known to her and her only. Teenaged hands, riddled with calluses and scars, hands you had spent months wishing to hold. She was probably one of the most beautiful people you ever knew and goddamn it, you’re not talking about her appearance anymore, not about the hair you wanted to card your hands through, not about the alabaster skin you had thought about on cold nights. When you think of Mikasa, you think about a midnight talk in an empty field, so you could pretend all the madness around you just disappeared for a moment. She approached you after a particularly bad fight with Eren, triggered by a jab at his upbringing. Hours later, your eye still stung, and you knew that it would be sporting an impressive bruise in the morning. She walked up to you and stared at the stars while she quietly told you about her childhood.

 

You never could quite look at her the same.

 

When you think of Mikasa now, you remember a girl who took on the world and won, about a child who had hell thrown at her and _survived_. You think about a soldier who had the courage to keep going after everything. You think about one of the strongest people you ever had the pleasure of fighting beside.

 

You‘re pretty sure that despite her strength, she probably would be dealing with your current situation worse than this pathetic show you’re putting on now. Her Achilles heel was always her family, the stupid cliché of her greatest strength was her greatest weakness, and she knew the ache, the loneliness, the _nothing_ , of being left behind, of leaving people behind, and you think of her small, broken family that she’d easily give the world and more for. Of her brother and of a living oxymoron. A boy with the face of a child, mind of a veteran. A soldier who was forced to grow up far too quickly and still dared to dream and wonder and imagine. Someone who could be so weak yet so, so strong.

 

You think of Armin.

 

You remember calling him creepy, _god_ the look on his face. You weren’t wrong, you thought he was weird, always sitting behind Eren, wearing matching exasperated expressions with Mikasa. He always struggled with the physical training, you had no idea how he didn’t get kicked out from day one. However, whether through his formidable intelligence, his refreshing friendliness, or his wide-eyed curiosity for everything around him, the blond boy grew on you. He provided a contrast to all the knuckleheads during training, who thought they could get by with pure strength alone. Even then, you still can’t believe how much he’s changed, from the awkward 12-year old, with an imagination too big for his small frame, to one of the Scouting Legion’s most irreplaceable strategists. He proved himself to everyone, and you are no exception. Despite all your years together as comrades, as friends, you still have a strange feeling in your gut whenever you see him. At first, you thought it was wariness, of distrust, as if he would betray you, the boy who risked his life to save his best friend, but after time it dawned on you. They were the shards of emerald jealousy. That you, with your place in the top 10 and your fancy maneuver  tricks, could never compare to the boy from Shinganshina, who may have been smaller and quieter but was never, not even for one moment, weak.

 

You cough, and flecks of your blood spray on the sand.

 

Maybe you should feel guilty about ruining the picturesque beach, but fuck it, some things never change. You’re dying, and you should be allowed this one last fuck up. You just can’t bring yourself to care; you know this is the end, so you accept the numbness with open arms and a crooked smile.

 

You so desperately want to scream, to cry, to laugh; anything would be a nice change. You want to feel again, wring your heart out of all emotion and let it splatter onto the sand: an ugly, irrational, blindingly human mess.

 

You think of Sasha and Connie.

 

You want them sitting beside you, because, you swear to the crumbling walls, they were nothing if full of emotion. They would smile and crack jokes, because what other way of dying is there? Sitting with your friends, a grin plastered on your face, ready to reunite with everyone else. They would tease you and mock you, all of which you found irritatingly childish when you first met them, but you learnt that it was their way of showing that you were one of them, that they loved you. You remember all throughout training, the way everyone would shake their heads at Connie, whenever they were taking some form of theory exam or strategy exercise. As if, by their exams and paperwork and fancy-ass tests, they could measure how unbreakable his spirit was, how implausibly, impossibly human he was, flat out refusing to let the war render him numb. Because that would mean the titans had won, because if they were humanity against the titans, wasn’t it vital that they remained human? You remember how much he cared, about humanity, about you, about Sasha. You could never figure out whether their relationship was platonic or not, with all the hugs and shared jokes and unreadable glances, but either way, together they were a hell of a good pinnacle point for humanity. You remember Sasha’s incident on your first day of training, the earning of the nickname ‘Potato Girl’, the way she proved to everyone that she was so goddamn more than just someone to laugh at. She was talented, she took the initiative and she was so unbelievably fearless, her recklessness could match Eren’s, for fuck’s sake. She was a dark horse, who would have thought that the girl who could be reduced to almost-tears by a loaf of bread, had been the warrior who fended off a titan with only a bow and arrow? Had been the soldier with lightning-quick reflexes and a gut instinct better than a hound? Had been the fighter all her life, and all of you were too judgemental and stupid to ever realise.

 

Your blinks are getting longer, you realise dimly. As black floods your eyelids, you feel more and more detached, as if you were ready to fly away with the seagulls, let them take your tired, tired body out into the sky. You feel like mentally punching yourself for saying that. You were never a poet. You’ll punch yourself later though, right now you’re just too exhausted and you think that just this once, you have a reasonable excuse for your failure.

 

You reminisce while looking at the bay, only pausing to trail your fingertips through the sand, feeling the blood stain your hand. It makes quite a pretty pattern, all peppery and freckly, and oh. Oh, of course this would be your final thought. Make that two mental punches because you don’t want to feel guilty and sick and awful, just like every time you think of him, but you’re far too tired to stop looking at the reddish-brown dots spotting your hand.

 

You think of Marco.

 

And by the walls, it hurts.

 

You think of a sixteen year old boy, moral and kind and warm to his core, and you are reminded by a stupid, _stupid_ , fifteen year old Jean, so blind and ignorant that he had to take Marco for granted, to never learn to memorise the scars on his body, to never remember that exact way his cheeks would dimple when he complimented you, to never commit to memory the small, fleeting kisses he would give you in the middle of the night. You think that maybe it works, it fits, it makes sense that the one who gave his life for yours was the one you remember, just as yours is about to end. You think of Marco, and you remember a soldier, never given the chance to grow older, thanks to your fuck ups. Forever stuck as a boy whose eyes had flickered in the moonlight as you held his hand, expression so soft that made your stomach turn, because what had you ever done to ever deserve this much love from such a brilliant, perfect person? What had you done but screw up and run away? You think you understand why you had to find him like that, all rotting grimace and blood seeping out and fetid skin peeling in the heat, because sooner or later, you were going to lose him. Just like everything else, you were too little, too late, too stupid to save anything good in your life, except just that once, please, _please_ , make an exception. Because you swear, anyone but him, anything but the golden boy you loved that the idea of losing him made you feel like curling up and closing up and giving up. But the universe wasn’t going to make you any favours any time soon so you did the next best thing: by honouring his memory, becoming wiser, braver, stronger, more like him, because Sina knows that the world needed more people like him. You had to do this, make Marco damn proud of you, to become someone worthwhile. And hey, even if you didn’t manage that, you sure as hell tried your best.

 

It’s funny, you don’t remember ever feeling this light, and you feel like one wrong move could push you _over the edge_

 

 

_your vision goes red, goes black, goes white, everything and nothing all at one and before you know it you’re slipping away and would you look at the time, because yours is finally up_

 

_and as your eyelids shut, you can see them all there_

 

 

_your parents, looking at you with so much pride your heart hurts_

 

_eren, an obnoxious smirk plastered across his face_

_mikasa, intense gaze softened by the respectful smile she gives you_

_armin, chattering away to no one in particular_

_sasha and connie, giggling and waving at you_

_ymir, historia, franz, hannah, captain levi, commander erwin, all whole, all there, all safe_

 

 

_in front of them all, **marco**_

 

 

_and right before you slip away, you manage to catch three words, three little words that make you feel complete and loved and fearless, like there’s a safety net when you fall, there’s something better, so much better than the bleak emptiness you feared_

_you catch those three words in the palm of your hand before you’re slipping_

 

_falling_

 

 

_**flying** _

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Welcome home, Jean.”


End file.
